Clinton visits New Haven, stresses health care plan

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT)

Published 7:00 pm, Monday, February 4, 2008

"After the cameras are gone and the lights are turned off, I will do the same work that I did, and that is to deliver solutions to problems confronting children and families," Clinton told a crowd of supporters at the Yale Child Study Center on South Frontage Road.

If elected, Clinton promised to push through a universal health care plan that would provide the same coverage as members of Congress have, provide subsidies to medical schools, and lower the interest rate on student loans.

"People say this will be expensive. So are prisons. So is domestic violence. So is criminal activity," she said. "Politics is a means to an end, not an end in itself. ... As president, I think and know I can do better than we have."

Clinton believes reinstituting the 1990s tax rate for those earning $250,000 or more would raise about $55 billion.

The New Haven stop was one of four Monday as Clinton prepared for today's Super Tuesday primaries taking place in more than 20 states, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and California.

Party caucuses are slated in six other states. All told, 1,600 Democratic and 950 Republican convention delegates are at stake.

For Clinton, Monday's visit was a homecoming of sorts. Some 37 years ago, as a Yale Law School student, she made rounds at Yale-New Haven Hospital with staff treating children exposed to abuse.

"The protocol treatment was just being developed," she said, adding that it was her goal to "tease out information" that would help treat the child and his or her family.

"When I think back on those years, they were the most important in my life," Clinton said.

She later helped gather evidence from parents of blind and wheelchair-bound children, which led to the creation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, allowing those children to enter public schools.

"You have a right to remain silent," Blumenthal, seated nearby, shouted.

Afterward, Blumenthal, who is supporting Clinton, called her performance one of the most powerful by a public official he's ever seen.

"She demonstrated the depth of her feelings and the in-depth knowledge of her 35 years of work," he said.

He also believes the country is ready for a woman or a black president.

"When Hillary and I were on campus, that audience you saw inside would have never existed," Blumenthal said. "It would be white, mostly male, with a smattering of women. We've changed as a nation and we're ready for either one of the Democratic frontrunners."

During a roundtable event at the Yale Child Study Center, Clinton addressed concerns raised by supporters.

They included people like Amy Lappos, a soon-to-be divorced mother of two from Seymour who is struggling to pay for child care; Carmen Colon, an executive director of the YMCA's Alpha Community Services program, which needs money to help the homeless; state Sen. Gayle Slossberg, whose 100,000 constituents include a newly divorced mother who can't afford breast cancer treatment; and Lynne Kudzey, a Stamford entrepreneur who can't grow her business because of high health care costs.

Clinton said her universal health care proposal would include tax credits and 250 different options.

"There would be no break in coverage," she said. "Everybody would be covered all the time."

She said the Democrats in Congress would be behind her proposal, and "the Republicans would have a hard time arguing against a plan that members of Congress get."

She told those gathered that "everyone in this room who pays taxes is already paying 75 percent of the costs of that health care plan. If it's good enough for Congress, it should be good enough for everyone else," Clinton said. "Every American needs to count, just like every member of Congress."

The presidential hopeful believes a small portion of health care insurance can be used to create a trust fund that would subsidize medical schools. "Every person insured would contribute a little bit," Clinton said, "but all would benefit from it."

Lappos said she was honored to sit at the same table with Clinton. "It took everything to keep from bursting into tears," she said. "She is so real and a strong, strong woman."

"She knows the needs of the poor, she knows the needs of the children, and she knows the needs of the community," Colon said. "She spelled out her plans and she knows where the money is to fund them."

Liza Goldman, a fourth-year medical student who plans to practice family medicine, said she asked Clinton if "a single-payer health insurance plan crossed her presidential desk, would she sign it?"

"She said yes. That's the first time she's said that," said Goldman, who admitted she is voting for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in today's primary.

"No one has the command of the issue as she does," said Bridgeport Mayor William Finch, who was in the audience along with Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy.

During her two-hour stop in New Haven, Clinton's bright-yellow blazer contrasted with the wear the campaign was taking on her already hoarse voice, further impacted by a persistent cough.

Upon leaving New Haven, Clinton had three other scheduled stops Monday -- two in Massachusetts and a live national town hall meeting broadcast in New York by the Hallmark Channel with feeds from 21 other locations.